


The Red Purse (and What Was in It)

by Lazy8



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [7]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aang stays frozen, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gladiators, Complacency, F/M, Forced to fight, Gen, Gore, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Minor Character Death, Racism, Slavery, exotification, self-indulgent trash, the fire nation won
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:28:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26287228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lazy8/pseuds/Lazy8
Summary: In a world where the iceberg never cracked and the Avatar was never awoken, there was no one to oppose the Fire Nation's takeover of the rest of the world. Now, it's all that the Water Tribes can do just to survive, and Sokka makes the hard choice to sacrifice his own freedom for the sake of his family's safety. He doesn't regret his decision. He can'taffordto, when he's losing more and more of himself every day.
Relationships: Katara & Sokka (Avatar), Piandao & Sokka (Avatar), Sokka/Suki (Avatar)
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1846456
Comments: 9
Kudos: 51
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	1. On the Shores of Red Waters

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt:** Deadly Game  
>  **Hurt Character:** Other/Your Choice  
>  **Comforting Character(s):** Sokka

The midnight sun was high in the sky when he left the South Pole for the first and last time, leaving nothing but a note.

It was against his family's wishes, he knew that. Gran-Gran had sat him down for several hours and had a serious talk about sacrifices, and choices, and about the need to consider carefully whether what one hoped to gain was worth the price of what one stood to lose. His sister had folded her arms and told him not to be ridiculous, that he was needed _here_. In the end, though, there was no getting around it: the Southern Water Tribe was growing more impoverished by the day, and they could barely scrape together enough to pay the Fire Nation's taxes. His family needed another source of income.

In all honesty, he wouldn't be surprised if Gran-Gran had already seen this coming. "You're old enough to make your own choices," she'd said when he'd approached her to discuss his options. Katara, though… he didn't think that Katara had really believed, deep down, that he would ever actually do it. She'd always treated his talk of leaving as just that: talk. The oft-repeated fantasies of someone who wanted to do more than was actually possible. Sokka hadn't said goodbye because he knew that she would try to stop him, and if anyone would have found the exact thing to say that would keep him from leaving, it was his baby sister. He was pretty sure that she was never going to forgive him.

That was okay, though. He didn't need her forgiveness, just for her to stay safe. After all, he was doing this for _her_.

* * *

…as it turned out, getting a job that would make you good money wasn't nearly as simple as just walking into the nearest Earth Kingdom town and asking for one. While there _were_ plenty of manual laborers who were all too happy for an extra pair of hands, there were hardly any who were willing to pay _well_. As it turned out, unskilled labor barely paid in dirt and anyone with a position to fill that would pay you more than dirt wanted actual _credentials_.

"I've got a family to feed too," the fisherman said with a shrug as he dropped a measly three coins into Sokka's outstretched hand. Sokka sighed. It was just one more variation on the same theme he'd heard again and again ever since he'd gotten here: "The harvest was bad." "I've got an old mother." "I've got kids." "That's all I can afford." Whatever the Fire Nation propaganda might say about anyone being able to better their circumstances if only they tried hard enough, the fact of the matter was that bettering one's circumstances took skill, and learning a skill took money, and when a community was already sunk deep into poverty money was just a little bit hard to come by.

Barely a month into his grand plan, Sokka lay in his bedroll, staring up at the stars, and sighed. He'd left the South Pole with little more than his canoe, a few rations, and the clothes on his back—and he'd had to sell the canoe in order to feed himself after he'd landed. If he wanted to earn real money, he was going to have to find real work—but nothing that Sokka was good at was in demand here, and anyone able to train him would want years of unpaid work in return, and as things were, he was camping outside because he didn't even have enough money to rent a room at the inn. What was he supposed to do now?

Sokka had always prided himself on being a logical, no-nonsense kind of guy, so rather than giving in to despair, he forced himself to think through his options. While the menial work he'd been doing wouldn't make him nearly enough money to pay the Southern Water Tribe's taxes, it would at least tide him over long enough to find an alternative solution, and having some money to send back to his family was better than nothing at all.

Lately, though, he was on the brink of admitting defeat and going back home. While he'd left to help out his family, he wasn't doing his family any good like this: the pittance he managed to send home couldn't be worth half of what he could contribute by actually _being_ there, and helping out in an environment where he actually knew what he was doing. He could save up some more rations, build another canoe, and…

…and that was when he overheard something that made him decide to give this just one more shot.

* * *

After the end of the War, prizefighting had become one of the most popular forms of entertainment in the Fire Nation mainland and colonies alike. Even an average fighter could make a decent living in the arena, and the most popular professional combatants were raking it in. Though Sokka had briefly considered it, when he'd gone to inquire at the local arena, after a test match with one of the other potential recruits had ended with him flat on his face in the dirt for the third time in a row, they'd turned him away. "Go home, kid," the overseer had told him. "Or come back after you've learned what you're doing. People come here to see a fight, not a slaughter."

Master Piandao, he'd been told, turned almost everyone away. Still, Sokka figured, as long as the (apparently) famous sword master was in the area, it couldn't hurt to at least _ask_ : at this point he'd had enough potential employers slam the door in his face because he didn't have the skills that they wanted, and enough people who could actually teach him those skills laugh in his face at the notion of teaching him for free (and _then_ slam the door in his face when they realized he wasn't joking) that not even his pride could get much lower at this point.

In all honesty, he wasn't expecting this to go anywhere. As he watched each of the other applicants, all of whom were much richer than he was if the quality of their clothing was any indication, go one by one into a closed room to meet in private with the master, only to come out a few minutes later with expressions that fell anywhere on a spectrum between indignant and disappointed, Sokka judged that he had been right not to get his hopes up. While he didn't actually believe there was a chance that the master would agree to take him on, he couldn't in good conscience give up on helping his family without at least having tried all of his available options. So, he was going to have one last go at learning something that could actually make him money; then he could admit defeat and go home.

Sokka was the last to meet with the master, which had given him plenty of time to come to terms with the inevitable rejection. So, when his turn finally came and Piandao asked him who he was, and why he wanted to train, and what he thought he had to offer to the art of the sword, Sokka did not attempt to lie, or to embellish his accomplishments as he might once have done. Instead, he simply told the master the unvarnished truth, and laid his situation out bare for all to see, no longer caring about how he would be judged. He was desperate. His family was desperate. He wouldn't be able to pay. He didn't have the first clue what he was doing. He had a lot to learn.

Sokka was as surprised as anyone when Piandao agreed to take him on.

* * *

The next time Sokka went to the local arena, carrying both a newly-forged sword and his newly-forged knowledge of how to use it, he wasn't turned away.

* * *

It had been a long, _long_ year.

A long year, perhaps, but still a productive one. For Sokka, things were definitely looking up.

Sokka had spent most of the past year making a name for himself in the ring, and finally, finally, he was earning enough money to be able to actually help his family. Not only that, but he'd attracted enough notice in the Earth Kingdom colonies that some mainland noble with too much money on his hands had decided to sponsor him. Now, he was on a ship on its way to the Fire Nation, where he'd be able to try his skills on an even more lucrative stage.

Not to mention Suki was coming with him.

Suki had started her career as a prizefighter at about the same time that he had, albeit with a lot more training under her belt. Her home, she said, was a tiny island in the southern Earth Kingdom, not yet colonized but still too close for comfort. She'd come here for the same reason that Sokka had: in the hopes of supporting her struggling community.

The first time they'd faced each other in the ring, Sokka had nearly refused to fight her because she was a girl… and that had been the last time he'd ever made _that_ mistake. Fortunately for him, the crowd had found his very thorough and incredibly humiliating defeat at her hands to be funny enough that they hadn't called for a kill. _Un_ fortunately for him, from that day on they'd become two of the most popular contestants to be pitted against each other. On the other hand, that same popularity meant that he and Suki were now on their way to the Fire Nation together, so… he did at least have that.

"Does it ever bother you?" she asked one day, quietly, as they stood together at the prow of the ship, leaning over the railing and watching as the chain of islands which that morning had only just been visible on the horizon slowly got larger and larger.

"Does what bother me?" Sokka asked, turning to nuzzle his nose into her neck.

Suki, though, didn't seem to be in a cuddling mood, and she pulled away from him to keep staring over the water, her eyes hard. "Fighting for the Fire Nation. We should be respected warriors in our own right, and we should be learning for ourselves, but instead we're killing each other for the enemy's entertainment."

"'Course it bothers me." Sokka leaned back against the ship's railing, tilting his head back to stare into the clouds. "I just don't see how we've got much of a choice. After losing the war, and what with the new Fire Nation taxes, my village is barely scraping by unless I can help them out… and I know that you're in the same boat as I am."

"Well, you're not wrong there." Suki let out a sigh. "So what do you have to protect?"

Sokka would have been lying if he said that it didn't occur to him in that moment to evade the question, or to make something up. After all, it wasn't unheard of for Fire Nation overseers to keep their prizefighters in line by pitting them against each other even outside of the arena, offering incentives to spill each other's secrets or even planting Fire Nation spies among them to root out dissent. By giving her his confidence, he would be taking a huge risk.

Then again, there was no getting around risk no matter what he did. He might not have known Suki for very long, but they'd quickly become close in ways that Sokka had never had a chance to with any other girl, and right now, there was no one else he would rather have his back. Sokka liked to think that he was a pretty good judge of character, and he had to trust _someone_ ; if he was going to take a chance on anyone, he thought that Suki was the best bet that he was going to get.

"My sister is a waterbender," he admitted at last, quietly, after darting his eyes around the deck several times to make sure that nobody else was in hearing range.

In response, Suki only nodded, her face showing not the slightest hint of expression. "My mothers have managed to avoid the Fire Nation's notice so far," she confessed in turn after a moment of silence had passed. "If we want to keep their attention away from us, that means someone has to make absolutely sure that Kyoshi Island can pay its taxes."

Sokka, in turn, only gave a nod of his own; there was no need to say anything more. Under the Fire Nation's rule, sexual deviancy was even worse than being a bender of anything other than fire. Benders, at least, had a chance of being drafted as prizefighters, but there were other forms of entertainment, entertainments that pandered to the audience's bloodlust rather than their appreciation of skill, games in which the unfortunate participants were _guaranteed_ to die—and not quickly or easily, either.

While Sokka and Suki were risking their lives, they were at least volunteer fighters: they were here by their own choice, they were getting paid, and they could leave whenever they wanted. He hated to think what it was like for the benders, and the convicts, who could either fight in the arena or face execution—tried not to think about it, honestly, because there was nothing he could do to help them. He had more than enough to worry about just trying to keep his own family afloat.

Sokka had no idea how hard it would get to hold onto that conviction in the months to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Suki has two mothers" is an idea that a friend floated by me once during a casual discussion, and it immediately became a beloved headcanon.


	2. Into the Dark Depths

"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to the first match of the evening! On the left, newly arrived from the colonies, we have… the Kyoshiiiiii Warrior!"

Right on cue, Suki stepped forward into the arena. She wore her full uniform and face paint, and waved her fans in a flourish as she greeted the crowd. Her entrance was met with equal parts polite applause and muttered exclamations; aside from her very extensive fighting skills, Suki's appeal laid in how exotic she appeared to a Fire Nation audience, and she deliberately played that up for all it was worth—though she'd confessed to Sokka in private that she was always gritting her teeth the whole time.

"And on the right, from the Southern Water Tribe, give it up for… the Noooble Savage!"

Sokka stepped forward, turning in a circle as he waved to the crowd. Then, as his line of sight crossed Suki's position, he did a theatrical double-take as if this were the first time he'd ever laid eyes on her.

"You're making me fight a _girl?_ " Sokka crossed his arms, sticking his nose in the air. "Bring me another opponent. I don't fight girls."

"Awwwwwww, what's the matter?" Suki taunted from across the room as the crowd booed and chanted for a fight. "Afraid I'll actually beat you?"

It was nearly a beat for beat reenactment of the first time they'd fought. Even though Sokka had thoroughly learned the error of his ways since that disastrous first match, they'd continued to perform the same routine whenever they had to face off against each other, because it was a proven crowd-pleaser and because it had yet to end in serious injury or death—they really didn't want to have to kill each other, and they'd learned pretty quickly that an audience that was laughing was an audience that was lenient.

Hopefully, that would prove to be just as true in the Fire Nation as it was in the Earth Kingdom.

"Forget it; I don't hurt girls." Sokka turned on his heel as if to leave the ring. "Call me again when you've found a _real_ warrior."

He hadn't taken two steps before Suki's hand grabbed the collar of his shirt and yanked him so hard that he flailed backwards, landing sprawled in an undignified heap on the floor of the arena.

"Still think I'm not a real warrior?" Before he could push himself to his feet, Suki was straddling him; she lowered the blade of one of her fans toward his neck… and then folded it and bopped the tip of his nose.

Oh, it was _on_.

That was the point where Sokka stopped bantering, and started legitimately trying to fight. Not to actually _hurt_ Suki, for reasons that no longer had anything to do with her being a girl, but rather to test his mettle, to show the crowd what he was made of. Just because he was supposed to lose this fight, that didn't mean that he could _throw_ the fight. It was a fine line to walk, winning the crowd: he had to be endearing enough for them to think he was too fun to kill even if he lost, but also competent enough to be allowed to live.

For a few seconds he struggled, and Suki obligingly leaped off his chest… only to sweep his feet right back out from under him when he tried to lunge at her.

The laughter of the crowd was reassuring; so they did have a sense of humor in the Fire Nation after all. Sokka had been starting to wonder.

Drawing his sword, he lurched to his feet once more and came at the grinning Suki, who already had both fans out and spread wide to receive him. Then, the fight began in earnest.

Cheers filled the arena as they fought and dodged and she trapped his sword with her fans. In the Earth Kingdom, the crowd had tended to favor Suki; here both of their names (their stage names, never their real names, never their real identities) seemed to be shouted in equal measure. That was good: if both contestants were popular that meant the audience was far less likely to call for a death.

It ended when Suki deftly ducked under his sword, trapped the blade with one of her fans and wrenched it from his hand, grabbed a fistful of his shirt, and somehow had his belt off and tying his hand and foot together before he could blink. Unable to keep his balance, Sokka fell flat on his face. The crowd was now roaring with laughter.

His own sword slammed into the arena floor in his peripheral vision as Suki knelt down in front of his face. "What do you say?"

"Fine! You won! You won!"

"Well, that's a start." She crossed her arms. "And what _else_ do you say?"

"I'm… sorry?"

"Good boy." A gloved hand reached out to pat his head, which was rewarded with another peal of laughter. "And do you know what else I want to hear?"

Sokka mumbled something under his breath.

"What was that?" Suki leaned forward, cupping a hand around her ear. "I couldn't hear you."

"I said _girls rule!_ "

The audience thought that was absolutely _hilarious_.

* * *

Even in the Fire Nation, the living quarters weren't exactly the best: they were all bunked together in one big room, with no privacy and the narrow beds so tightly packed there was barely room to walk between them. The food wasn't also the best: the mess hall was communal, and unless you wanted to pay for your own food, you choked down whatever slop the Fire Nation gave you and didn't complain. True, Sokka was making enough money now that he probably _could_ have afforded to pay for his own, nicer lodgings, not to mention real meals. He didn't, though: almost everything he made was still going back to his family.

That wasn't to say that he couldn't afford to indulge himself _once_ in a while.

Suki had just won a big bout with no bloodshed and no serious injuries to either her or her opponent, and that was always a reason to celebrate. Before sending most of the money she'd won back to her home island and keeping back whatever she judged she'd need for necessary expenses, she'd set aside a small portion to treat herself to something nice, which was how she and Sokka ended up spending the evening in town, starting with a nice dinner and then moving on to… other activities.

Their usual living quarters afforded them almost no privacy: this was pretty much the only opportunity they ever got to spend time alone together, even if it was in a convenient stand of trees rather than a real bed. Suki wouldn't let him go all the way with her anymore: the Earth Kingdom herbals that she knew how to use didn't grow in the Fire Nation, and under these circumstances, she refused to do anything that might risk a pregnancy. Still, she made up for that by being almost inhumanly good at literally everything else, and at the end of the day, Sokka couldn't help but think that he had it better than a lot of other guys who actually _were_ sleeping with their girlfriends.

It wasn't an easy life. But they were here by their own choice, they were making money, and they could leave whenever they wanted. No matter what happened, it was important to remember that.

Unfortunately, it was at about that point that life stopped being nearly so straightforward and simple.

* * *

His next bout was scheduled about a week after Suki's, and he was nervous. He always was, right before a fight, especially when his opponent was a complete unknown. Sokka hadn't been here nearly long enough to get to know the full lineup, and most of them had about an equal chance of meeting their end in the ring as they did of living that long.

It was okay. Sokka only needed to keep doing this long enough to better his family's circumstances. He could leave whenever he wanted.

In the meantime, though, there wasn't much point in him even being here if he wasn't making money, and if he wanted to make money, then he needed to fight and he needed to _win_. Sokka took a deep breath, and strapped his sword onto his back.

Suki was waiting for him at the entrance to the arena, her face free of makeup—she never wore her makeup outside of the arena, these days. Sokka's own warpaint had begun to feel almost foreign on his face, but he also continued to apply it before every bout. Without speaking, she leaned in and gave him a kiss for luck. If he won, he knew, they'd head out into the city to celebrate with him paying this time, and she'd probably end up giving him a lot more than that—but before that could happen, he had a fight to win, or at the very least to _survive_ , so for now, it was only a kiss.

The cheers as he stepped out into the arena were deafening—Sokka had become a popular contestant during the time that he'd been here, thanks to his penchant for making a fight entertaining regardless of whether he won or lost. It was one of the things that he was counting on to keep him alive.

As the announcer made his introduction, Sokka began to relax. The anticipation before a fight was always worse than the actual fight. He could get through this. He could…

Oh, _no_.

It was immediately clear from the shackles with which his opponent was restrained (to say nothing of the curses he was spitting at his captors) that he was not here of his own volition, like Sokka and Suki. He was a conscript, or a convict—which one, it didn't particularly matter, except insofar as a conscript, while having no chance of leaving, at least had a slightly better chance of at least _living_ to the end of a match. A convict who lost a match would _have_ to be killed—and thus would be that much more likely to give it his all to kill his opponent in turn.

His opponent's blades—a pair of thin metal swords with wicked-looking hooks on the end—had been placed on the ground in front of him, far enough away that his handlers would have adequate time to retreat before he retrieved them. Sure enough, they were running for the exit even as he was lunging for the blades, and by the time he'd retrieved them, they had made it to safety behind the locked doors of the arena.

Scowling, his opponent—his handle was "The Wild Man"—turned to Sokka instead. He couldn't have been much older than Sokka was, and the fact that he was using weapons meant that he probably wasn't a bender—so why was he here?

That question abruptly ceased to matter when Sokka's opponent turned the full force of his glare on him. "Well?" he demanded, eyebrows drawing down into a scowl. "Are you here by your own choice, _traitor?_ "

"Well, yeah, but—"

That was as far as he got before the other came at him with a yell of rage.

This was different from the fights he usually had. Usually, he was one of the more popular fighters, and thus was pretty sure the crowd would want him alive regardless of whether he won or lost, so at least _some_ of the pressure was off. Most of the time, he was up against other volunteers, who didn't want to kill him any more than he wanted to kill them, and who probably wouldn't _have_ to as long as they made the fight look good. This time, though, his opponent was fighting to kill, and Sokka knew that even if he won, he would be expected to kill in turn. This time, the fight came down to only one thing: _him or me_.

"Coward!" the other boy yelled as Sokka just barely managed to block the onslaught of both swords with just his one. "The Fire Nation took our lands and ruined our lives, and here you are siding with _them?_ You're doing things _their_ way?" Almost too quick for the eye to follow, he lashed out with his foot, catching Sokka in the ribs and forcing him to drop his guard and roll to the side with a grunt. "You should be ashamed to call yourself a Water Tribesman—if you even _are_ really a Water Tribesman."

"And end up like _you?_ " Sokka just barely managed to roll out of the way of the hook that pounded into the floor of the arena right where his head had been not a split second before. "The Fire Nation's _won!_ I don't have to _like_ what I'm doing, but at least I have _some_ freedom!"

That, apparently, had been exactly the wrong thing to say.

"Freedom? _Freedom!?_ " The other boy had a look in his eyes now that Sokka could only describe as crazed. "You call _this_ freedom?" He gave a wild laugh, and attempted to use one of his hooks to knock the sword from Sokka's hand; Sokka only just barely managed to evade the attack. "You can tell yourself whatever you want, but it won't make you any less the Fire Nation's stooge!"

Sokka opened his mouth… but there was no defense that he could make. The other boy was right, and they both knew it.

There was only one thing he could possibly say to justify his choices… and it was also the one thing that absolutely no one must know. So, Sokka did the only thing he could do, kept his mouth shut, and fought.

This time, there was no banter, no goofy antics that made the audience howl with laughter. This time, it was a real fight, and the spectators were on the edge of their seats.

 _Him or me. Him or me. Him or me._ That was the one thought that was repeating over and over again in Sokka's head, as he blocked and parried and dodged the hooks that came within a hair's breadth of slitting his throat. _I_ have _to think about my family. I have to think about my_ sister _. I can't_ afford _to die today._

In the end, it wasn't his Fire Nation training that saved him, or the sword he'd forged from Fire Nation steel with the techniques he'd learned from a Fire Nation master: it was his Water Tribe boomerang, the one his father had first started teaching him to throw when he was six and which he'd refused to part with since the day he'd left, not even after he'd learned new ways to fight and not when he was struggling for money and selling such a novel weapon probably could have made him at least enough for a few meals. Now, when he was backed into a corner, when his sword had finally been knocked from his hand and the other boy's hooked weapon was heading straight for his throat, Sokka found himself reaching for it as naturally as breathing, and even though it had been months since he'd last fought with anything other than his sword, when it left his hand his aim was still as true as it had always been.

Right as the other boy was about to slit his throat, the boomerang hit him hard enough to send him sprawling flat on his face, leaving a bloody lump on the back of his head. The hooks fell from his grip as his hands gave a spasm; Sokka took the opportunity to kick them out of his reach.

Sokka's ears were ringing as he picked up his own blade, but he didn't need to be able to hear to tell what the crowd's yelling meant. No choice. He had no choice.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" The other boy glared from under his shaggy hair as the tip of Sokka's blade came to rest at the base of his throat. " _Do it!_ "

When he made the final stroke, he couldn't be sure whether the roaring in his ears came from the cheering of the crowd, or from within his own head.

Sokka barely managed to stagger out of the arena before falling to his hands and knees and emptying his stomach all over the floor.

* * *

There was no celebration after that fight.

That night, Suki held him as he lay on his bed with his head in her lap. He couldn't stop shaking.

When Sokka received a red purse the next day, fat with coins, he felt like he was going to be sick again. He'd just as soon have dumped it into the river—but if he did that, he would have taken another person's life for no reason at all, so he did the only thing that he _could_ do and forced himself to walk into town, where he arranged for his winnings to be sent to his family.

He was here by his own choice. He was making money. He could leave whenever he wanted.

He _could_ leave.

Would his family really be willing to accept blood money as the price for escaping their life of poverty? Would they choose to keep their daughter's secret if it meant that their son would have blood on his hands?

It didn't matter. If Katara was found out, then she would be thrown into the ring herself, or worse. If Sokka had to become a killer as the price for his sister's safety, then that was a sacrifice he was willing to make.

* * *

Conscripts _weren't_ here by their own choice. They _weren't_ making money. They _couldn't_ leave whenever they wanted.

"Suki?" he asked one day as they lay in the privacy of one of the relatively isolated little stands of trees they'd found during their many, many excursions into town.

"Hm?" He was lying in the grass with his head in her lap as she combed her fingers through his hair, which had long since escaped from its tie.

"Can I ask you a favor? A really, _really_ big one."

Immediately, Suki's fingers stilled. Cracking his eyes open, Sokka could see that she was looking down at him with a troubled frown on her face.

"Tell me what it is," she said at last. "I can't make any promises without knowing what the risks are, but…" She shrugged. "Whatever it is, it still can't hurt to _ask_."

"Yeah, I suppose not." Sokka smiled briefly, before sitting up so he could properly look her in the eye. "Do you think you could get me into the conscripts' quarters?"

"Sokka…" The troubled frown was now joined by a crease between her eyebrows. "You do know how dangerous that is, right? How much trouble we could be in if we got caught?"

"I know." He sat up, and leaned forward to capture both of Suki's hands in his. "I know this is a really big ask, and if you don't want anything to do with it, I'll understand."

"I'm going to have to think about it," she replied at last, and Sokka only nodded, and kept his word not to push her. After all, it was his idea, and it wasn't Suki's job to deal with _his_ demons. If she said no, he'd think of something else. He always did.

* * *

Three nights later, he was woken from an uneasy sleep by a hand over his mouth.

Suki held a finger to her lips as she jerked her head toward the door. Even the volunteer fighters had a mandatory curfew; being outside of quarters after hours might be a minor infraction, but it was still an infraction, and if they were caught, it could cost them anything from docked pay to a match with one of the more undesirable opponents.

Even if they were caught, though, Sokka didn't think it would look _too_ suspicious. It was no secret that he and Suki were lovers; no one who found them was likely to look for any reason beyond the obvious to explain why they were out of bounds after hours.

Absolutely none of which changed the fact that Sokka would _really_ rather not get caught.

So, he didn't question Suki as she dragged him down the hallway, through several turns that he didn't think he'd be able to remember while still half-asleep, and ducked behind a tapestry that covered a hidden nook. There, she turned to look at him seriously.

"Before we go _any_ further, I need to know why this is so important to you."

That was fair. He was asking her to take a huge risk for him, after all, even knowing what it was that _she_ had to lose. "I just want to know what we're complacent in. I think it's the only way for me to know whether or not I made the right decision."

Suki let out a breath, before nodding decisively and placing a hand on his shoulder. "Okay. I'll get you in."

Suki, he remembered, had had to make a kill only just that afternoon. Somehow, he didn't think that the timing was a coincidence.

To his surprise, the next thing Suki did was pull out a map, which she flattened against the wall so they could both squint at it in what little torchlight filtered through the tapestry to their hiding place. "We sleep here." She tapped a block of buildings that lay to the east of the arena—of course, she wasn't telling him anything that he didn't already know, but Sokka let her talk, knowing she must have a reason. Suki might not have been above humiliating him in the arena or goofing off in their off-hours, but she would never waste time in a situation this serious. "The conscripts' quarters…" she let her hand drift to the side to tap against the location of another building complex, this one to the _west_ of the arena, "…are here." She looked back up at Sokka. "I don't think they wanted us mixing."

"Makes sense." He was just opening his mouth to ask what the rest of the plan was, when something else abruptly occurred to him. "Wait a minute, how did you—"

Suki smiled, small and tight. "Did you really think I'd agree to something like this without making any preparations first?"

In that moment, Sokka could have kissed her. If he started kissing her now, though, he wasn't sure whether he'd be able to stop, so he settled for shooting her a grin of his own. "Okay. Let's go."

As it turned out, Suki's investigations hadn't stopped at obtaining a map: she'd also memorized the guard shifts, picked out a route, and somehow even learned which security measures they'd need to get past—Sokka would have been floundering around in the dark all night without her. As it was, the sneaking journey went more smoothly than he ever would have dared to hope.

"Okay," Suki whispered at last, as they pressed their backs to the wall of a building with bars on its windows and guards patrolling the perimeter at regular intervals. "This one houses the non-bending convicts. Are you ready?"

Sokka took a deep breath. He could still turn around, he knew: go back to bed, forget any of this had ever happened.

He nodded.

Suki didn't want to take the risk of actually breaking into the convicts' quarters, and Sokka didn't want to ask her to. Instead, she counted out the passing of the next patrol, and then boosted him up to the nearest barred window.

Even before he caught his first glimpse of what was inside, he was nearly bowled over by the smell.

He had to cover his mouth to keep himself from gagging at the stench of waste and vomit and general unwashed human. The prisoner wasn't shackled, but that was small consolation considering the conditions in the _rest_ of the cell: there was no bedding, only a thin layer of straw scattered over the floor, which barely had enough space between the wall and the door in which to lie down. The only furnishing was a single ceramic pot that looked as if it hadn't been emptied for at least a day, given that it was beginning to overflow. As for the prisoner himself… he was severely underweight, with festering sores visible on the patches of skin that poked out from under his threadbare uniform. His hair was matted and filthy, and he clearly hadn't had a shave since… well, probably since he'd first been thrown in here. Right now, he was leaning listlessly against the wall, not even bothering to try to sleep.

Suki only let him stand on her shoulders for a few seconds, but a few seconds was enough. Sokka was covering his mouth as she let him down. He couldn't afford to throw up again, not here, not now. He would _not_.

Sokka tried to remind himself that all of the people in there were criminals. Murderers. Rapists. For all he knew, the man in that cell was a serial killer who'd beaten his wife and cannibalized babies.

…or maybe he was guilty of nothing more than stealing a bag of rice to feed his starving children, or even of saying something that contradicted the Fire Nation's policies. When it came right down to it, Sokka had no way of knowing—and without knowing what the crime had been (if there even _had_ been a crime), he was in no position to judge what the punishment should be. The only thing he could be sure of was that there was no possible way that this could be right.

Dimly, he was aware that Suki was rubbing his back. He forced his head up so he could look her in the face, to see that her expression was hard, but held not the slightest hint of surprise—even before she'd agreed to go on this venture, she'd already known, or guessed, far more than he had.

"Have you seen enough yet?" she asked him, not unkindly. "If you want to go ahead and go back now, we can."

She was offering him an out, he knew, but Sokka shook his head. What he'd seen so far was bad enough, but somehow he knew that that was far from the extent of the Fire Nation's cruelty. He had to know just how bad it got.

"Show me the next one."

The prisons that specialized in containing earthbenders and waterbenders were, if anything, even worse. Earthbenders were kept locked in metal cages and suspended high above the ground, their wrists and ankles shackled together so they couldn't walk at anything more than a shuffle, or move their wrists more than a handspan apart. Waterbenders got their own special treatment, in a building kept so hot Sokka thought he might faint just standing outside of its walls, where bone-dry air was continually pumped in from who-knew-where.

This time, Sokka couldn't even give himself the consolation that they might have actually done something to deserve this. The only crime these prisoners had committed, he knew, was being able to bend something other than fire.

He thought of his sister being kept in such conditions, and once again had to choke back bile.

"Are… are we done yet?" he forced himself to ask, just as soon as he trusted himself to open his mouth without spewing the contents of his stomach all over the ground.

For a moment, Suki hesitated, not meeting his eyes. "There's… one more."

In the end, Sokka supposed, he really shouldn't have been surprised. After all, this was the punishment the Fire Nation meted out to _anyone_ caught committing a crime—it only stood to reason that if they imprisoned and conscripted their own citizens, then some of them were bound to be firebenders.

Somehow, the final prisoner he laid eyes on that night was also the one who made the biggest impression. Maybe it was the way his hands curled into fists at the noise at his window—rather than shackles, he had strips of metal affixed to his hands over his palms and knuckles; Sokka had no idea what those were for, since they didn't seem to be restricting his movements. Or maybe it was just the way that his golden eyes met Sokka's over the metal muzzle that covered the lower half of his face, in a glare that flashed with defiance. Most of the prisoners he'd peeked in on had been too miserable to even acknowledge that he was there, much less had the energy to actually _glare_ at him.

Even as Suki snuck him back to their quarters, Sokka couldn't help but wonder who that guy was, and what he had done to get himself locked up here.


	3. The Ones Who Walk Away

Sokka couldn't do this anymore.

All this time, he'd been telling himself that he _had_ to stick it out, that it was the only option he had for protecting his sister. Alongside the nightmares of Katara being dragged away in chains, though, he was now having entirely _new_ nightmares of what Katara would say, of what his _father_ would have said, if they found out what sorts of atrocities had been going on right under his nose, that he'd known all along and still done nothing.

The next day, right before practice was due to start, he steeled himself and marched right up to the overseer.

"What?" the man demanded with a sour expression before Sokka could even open his mouth. "Just because you won a few matches, that doesn't mean you can expect special treatment. You're here to train, not on vacation."

"I—"

_I quit._ He was just on the brink of saying it when Suki stepped up beside him and grabbed his arm.

"Mind if we train with something other than our usual today?" she asked the overseer with a smile. "We were comparing our fighting styles last night, and I'd like to teach him a few new moves."

For a moment, the overseer looked at them both with a raised eyebrow. "Fine," he said at last. "But you'd better _actually_ be training, because if I catch you doing anything else, you can expect docked pay in the future—and forget about ever being allowed to work together again."

"What are you _doing?_ " Sokka hissed in her ear after Suki had dragged him away with a hasty "Thanks!" before he could even think to protest. "I was about to—"

"I _know_ what you were about to do." Suki spoke in an undertone, and as she turned to glare at him Sokka was taken aback by how _angry_ she looked. "Do you think I've never thought about it myself?" She yanked a practice sword from the rack with enough force to send several others clattering to the ground. "More importantly, with all you know and everything you've done, do you really think they're just going to _let_ you walk away?"

"I—"

Sokka felt sick as the implications of what she had just said fully hit him. What if they _didn't_ allow him to leave?

How many volunteer prizefighters did he know of who'd quit? At the moment, he couldn't think of a single name—the ones who _had_ talked seriously of leaving somehow always seemed to end up in a fight with an opponent who killed them the very next day, or even to just disappear without a trace, and no one quite dared speak up to ask where they had gone. While he'd always assumed they'd just followed through with their plans, he could no longer pretend that he hadn't spotted a whole lot of _very_ familiar swords gathering dust in the weapons room.

Sure, they all _started out_ thinking that they'd make their fortune in the ring and then go home… but somehow no one ever seemed to _actually_ go home. They made their fortune in the ring, and they died in the ring. Or they stayed on indefinitely, and their talk of going back to their families grew progressively quieter as time went on.

Was the first prisoner, the first "criminal", he'd laid eyes on the night before actually one of their own, who'd gotten too vocal about wanting to leave?

Suki was watching him carefully, as if she could see every one of the thoughts flying through his head, and as the final realization dawned on his face, she shoved a practice sword into his hand. "Come on," she said, gently. "You've got a match you need to be ready for."

For the rest of practice, the two of them talked about nothing other than weapons and techniques. When he tried to sleep, though, Sokka was woken several times by nightmares about steel closing around his wrists and a barred door clanging shut behind him.

* * *

He was here by his own choice. He was making good money.

…they were _never_ going to let him leave.

" _Whatever it is we end up doing,_ " Suki had whispered in his ear during one of their trysts, right after they'd finished up with a series of activities that he was pretty sure nobody else would _want_ to spy on, " _we're going to need to make it a lot more permanent than just handing in a resignation. This whole system, all of it, needs to go down. But until we have a plan—a_ real _plan, that won't put our families in danger, and that's actually going to_ work— _we need to keep our heads down, and carry on like normal._ "

Keep your head down and act normal. That was easy enough to say when you were tangled up in a half-clothed heap with your girlfriend. Not so much when you were in the middle of the ring facing off against an opponent with a freaky blue mask and two big swords, who fought like a demon and who'd probably kill you if he won, and whom you were going to _have_ to kill if _you_ won.

Considering the circumstances, Sokka was in no mood for banter, and his performance wasn't helped by his opponent's unnerving silence—indeed, it was all he could do just to block and dodge, much less catch his breath long enough to manage a proper taunt. All of which was _incredibly bad_ , given that he'd been relying on his wit to keep him popular enough that the audience would spare him even if he lost.

Sokka's sword went flying out of his hand. Then, before he could blink, both of his opponent's blades were crossed at his throat.

This time, he had no recourse: a single twitch from his opponent (the Blue Spirit, he was called the Blue Spirit) could send his head flying before he could even so much as _reach_ for another weapon. So, Sokka did the only thing he _could_ do, spread his fingers wide, and moved his open hands slowly out to his sides. "A warrior surrenders with honor."

It was a formal admission of defeat, and even though your _opponent_ was expected not to kill you without a clear signal, it was still throwing yourself on the mercy of the _audience_. Sokka could only hope he'd made himself popular enough with _this_ audience that they'd find it worth their while to spare his life.

It seemed like _hours_ passed before he learned his fate, even though in reality, it could not have been more than a few beats of his heart. At long last, though, the blades were withdrawn and sheathed, and Sokka could breathe again.

The Blue Spirit bowed, and left the arena without a word. He didn't even resist as the guards put the shackles back on, as if daring them to comment on the fact that he had lived through yet another match.

* * *

If you didn't win, you didn't get paid. _This_ time, though, Sokka was grateful just to have escaped with his life.

…what were the chances that he would be so lucky the _next_ time he lost a match? Or the time after that? Sokka wasn't an optimist like his sister, who always seemed to think that everything would somehow magically work out no matter how bad things got. Sokka was a realist. The odds were already stacked against him, and he knew that sooner or later, his luck was going to run out.

Three days later, one of the others was seriously injured.

Sokka hadn't witnessed the match, and he didn't know the details: only that the man (the _boy_ , really; he was younger than Sokka's little sister) had been pitted against an earthbender who'd been determined not to die. Even though he hadn't been killed outright, a single look at his crushed leg was enough to tell even a casual observer that even if he lived through this, he would never fight again.

Prizefighters, even volunteers, were not afforded any medical treatment more substantial than the occasional roll of bandages or jar of antiseptic salve, and even then, they were expected to be responsible for their own treatment. According to the overseer, if their injuries weren't coddled, that was all the more incentive for them not to get injured in the first place—which was possibly the stupidest thing that Sokka had ever heard in his life. Unless you were literally suicidal or you _really_ liked pain, then not getting injured was enough of an incentive all on its own, thanks, and they all knew that the _real_ reason was that the Fire Nation was just too cheap to spare real medical supplies or doctors for the upkeep of people who didn't win enough fights.

The rest of them did what they could. Some of their bunkmates took it in turns to sit with the injured boy, holding his hands or letting him rest his head in their laps and stroking his hair as he cried out in pain. Anyone who had any knowledge of medicine provided what treatment they could. Though Sokka quickly learned that he was too squeamish to do anything other than get in the way while the others were trying to help, when those who had recent winnings pooled whatever they could spare, he was the one who took the money into town to buy whatever medicines he could find that would help dull the pain.

Though they all did their part to make his passing easier, none of their efforts were enough to save him. He succumbed three days later, screaming for his mother and in terrible pain.

When the screams finally ended, it was an awful relief. Sokka didn't think that any of them had slept a single night ever since the whole thing started, and now that it was over, it was almost as if they were too tired to close their eyes.

Suki was slumped next to him on his bed, leaning into his side. She, like the rest of them, had done whatever she could to help—far more than Sokka had—but though she knew a respectable amount of field medicine, what she'd learned was only intended to hold someone together long enough for them to get to a _real_ healer. Here, though, real healers were in short supply, and it was only possible to hold a human body together for so long before it fell apart.

That night, as he lay awake in bed with Suki nestled into his side (for once, no one had given them any dirty looks—they desperately needed the comfort, and it wasn't as if either of them had the energy to do anything more than cuddle), Sokka pulled out the parting gift that Master Piandao had given him, and rolled it across his knuckles.

It was plain, unassuming: a simple Pai Sho tile, completely useless without the rest of the set. At the time, Sokka had wondered why Master Piandao had given it to him—it wasn't much use as anything other than a memento, and Sokka already _had_ his sword for that (though, unlike the sword, nobody had ever tried to take the tile away from him). Now, though, he recalled his master's sad sigh, the disdain with which he'd spoken of the bloodsports the Fire Nation was financing, and his admonishment to write if there was ever anything he needed, and wondered whether his parting words had been more than a simple offer of everyday help.

What he was considering would be a _huge_ risk, and Sokka wasn't so naive as to believe he had nothing left to lose. He hadn't told Master Piandao the full truth about his sister: he hadn't told _anyone_ that, save for Suki. Besides, for all that he criticized his country far more freely than anyone else Sokka had yet met here, the man was still Fire Nation. He had to have _some_ loyalty, and Sokka didn't dare gamble his sister's safety on a guess at how far that loyalty might stretch.

Still, he couldn't continue to do _nothing_ , not when the alternative was continuing to be part of _this_. Sokka's fist clenched around the lotus tile as he made his decision.

* * *

In hindsight, he probably _should_ have consulted Suki before he went into town, alone, and spent some of his rapidly-dwindling savings on parchment and ink. He _definitely_ should have consulted Suki before writing a letter— _carefully_ , making sure never to say outright what he wanted but heavily hinting nonetheless that he needed help—stuffing it into a message tube along with the lotus tile, and spending yet more money that he couldn't spare on a messenger hawk to Master Piandao before he had time to second-guess himself. Sokka swallowed his guilt, and reminded himself that he was _protecting_ her. On the (admittedly not unlikely) chance someone figured out what he was _actually_ trying to do, at least she wouldn't be implicated in his transgression.

When the reply did come, it admittedly could have been much, _much_ worse… but it also dashed any hopes he might have had of receiving help from _that_ quarter.

It seemed that Sokka's efforts to be subtle had worked a bit _too_ well, for Piandao's response was little more than an exchange of pleasantries from master to student: he was glad to hear that Sokka was still alive and hoped that he was doing well, in addition to a map showing the location of his manor and an invitation to visit at his earliest convenience (which Sokka _couldn't do_ , because he _couldn't actually leave_ ). He had to read the whole thing three times over with mounting incredulity before angrily stuffing it inside of an old sock which he then jammed violently under his pillow.

He'd _expected_ this possibility, he told himself over and over again over the next several days. It had been a long shot from the beginning; he hadn't _really_ thought that his old master could or would help. Still, having it confirmed that he and Suki really _were_ on their own was more of a blow than he'd ever anticipated.

Over the next few days, he spent all of his free time enveloped by a cloud of gloom that not even time with Suki could shake. After a couple of attempts to get him to open up, she threw her hands in the air and let him alone, assuming that his bad mood was due to a combination of accumulated stress and the match he was about to fight. " _You_ might be giving up, but I'm not ready to," she finally snapped, after several days' worth of efforts had failed to bring him out of his funk. "Call me when you're actually ready to make an _effort_ again."

Sokka didn't have the heart to tell her that he _had_ made an effort, and that it had ultimately come to nothing.

…right up until something happened to make him wish that it _had_.

At first, he was merely puzzled upon opening up the red purse and finding a White Lotus Pai Sho tile sitting in among the coins. Upon reaching in a bit further, though, he found something _else_ that made his blood run cold.

Sokka's breath caught in his chest as he drew out the sleek blue ribbon, from which was dangling a circular crystal pendant. No… _no no no_ , this couldn't be happening, after everything they'd gone through, everything he'd done…

His plea for help _had_ worked… but as it turned out, he'd completely misjudged the recipient. Well, the Fire Nation had just made their last mistake: now that they had his sister, he really _did_ have nothing left to lose. Even if it cost him his life, he was going to make them _pay_.

That was how Suki found him, struggling to batter down the door of the room where their weapons were kept under lock and key, only to be accessed when it was time for a match.

"What do you think you're _doing?_ " Grabbing his wrist, she spun him around to face her. "I thought we agreed—"

" _Forget_ what we agreed," Sokka snarled, yanking out of her grip. "We already tried doing things _your_ way, and it's gotten us nowhere! _Worse_ than nowhere! Well, I'm not letting you hold me back anymore!" He turned back to the door.

"And I'm not letting _you_ put _all_ of us in danger over whatever tantrum you're having right now." He ignored her, and continued to fiddle with the lock, at which point she grabbed his wrist again. " _Sokka!_ "

When he turned on her, furious, it was to find Suki meeting his eyes with an equally hard look. In that moment, he knew that if he wanted to do this, then he was going to have to go through her.

What Sokka did next, he really wasn't proud of—under any other circumstances, the very idea would have horrified him. There weren't normal circumstances, though: this was the very worst happening to his little sister despite his best efforts to protect her, and Suki stubbornly standing between him and any chance of revenge. In that moment, she ceased to be his girlfriend, and instead was reduced to an obstacle who was trying to keep him from the _one thing_ left in his life that was worth taking.

He was the one to throw the first punch.

If he'd had a weapon in his hand, he might have actually managed to hurt her on the strength of his fury alone. Suki, though, had always been much better than he was at hand to hand combat, and she'd spent her whole life practicing techniques meant to restrain opponents who were much bigger and stronger than Sokka was. After a brief (if violent) struggle, she had him on his knees on the floor with his arms wrenched behind his back, and no matter how hard he struggled and thrashed, he couldn't break her hold.

" _What is going on?_ " Far from her earlier anger, Suki now sounded _scared_ , in a way that she never had even when facing down death in the ring. "Sokka, _talk to me_."

All of his struggling spent, he could only lie on the floor and cry, harsh gasping sobs tearing out of his throat on every breath. Slowly, as if worried she might have to restrain him again any second, Suki released her grip and sank down to sit beside him on the floor, where she placed a hand between his shoulder blades and began rubbing his back in slow, steady circles.

Then, word by word, the story was pouring out of him, in sentences broken by hiccups and sobs. His attempt to solicit outside help. The seemingly innocuous answer. Then, out of nowhere, his sister's necklace… his sister, caught…

"And it's _all my fault_ ," he finished at last, curling in on himself in the middle of the floor. "If I hadn't been so _stupid_ , and trusted someone I barely even _know_ , then Katara wouldn't… she wouldn't…" At that point, though, he was unable to continue, and broke down crying once more.

For a long, long time, Suki didn't answer, only continued to rub his back. Sokka wasn't sure how much time had passed before he finally mustered up the energy to raise his head and squint up at her through his tears, but when he did, it was to find that she didn't look outraged or even sympathetic as he might have expected, but rather that she had a thoughtful expression on her face.

"What?" he demanded when she continued to stare off into the distance. "Suki, didn't you hear _anything_ I just said? _They have my sister_. It… it's over."

Still, Suki didn't answer, though she seemed to be pondering something. Finally, she turned back to face him, decision in her eyes. "Sokka, I don't want to get your hopes up, but… what if it isn't?"

It took him a couple of seconds and a few more sniffles to process what she'd said, and even then, he couldn't fathom how she could have reached such a conclusion. "Wait, what?"

"Well…" Now even her hand on his back had gone still. "I know what it _looks_ like, but there are so many things that just don't make sense. I mean, think about it," she continued as Sokka looked at her incredulously. "If someone had taken your sister prisoner, or had her killed, why would he tell you exactly where to find him, and then make _sure_ you knew that he was the one responsible? That's like screaming 'I just made your worst nightmare come true, come kill me!' That doesn't sound like the Master Piandao you told me about."

"Maybe he's just a really good actor." Sokka sniffled. "And maybe this whole thing is a trap." Despite his efforts not to get his hopes up, though, Suki's words carried a ring of truth that had his heart fluttering in his chest.

"Maybe." Suki smiled down at him. "Or maybe there's something he's trying to tell you."

* * *

The next time the two of them were allowed a trip into town, they didn't come back.

Having to leave his sword behind was a disappointment. Losing his boomerang stung even more. The sacrifice, he told himself, was a necessary one: weapons could be replaced. Perhaps, someday, even retrieved. When compared to his sister's life, or to his own integrity, there really was no contest.

In the end, escaping from an evil empire was far easier than it had a right to be: he and Suki had gone into the city and back again so often than nobody batted an eyelash when they left. And if they wore read clothing, and pulled their hair up into appropriate Fire Nation styles… well, they _had_ been encouraged to assimilate outside of their time in the ring, and as long as you dressed and acted like you'd been born in the Fire Nation, no one tended to look too closely at the tone of your skin or the color of your eyes.

Even the risk of being identified individually was low: whenever they fought in front of an audience, Suki had always worn her thick Kyoshi makeup, and Sokka his tribal warpaint. In public, the best disguise that they had was their uncovered faces.

In the streets of the city, they simply strolled along with the crowd, not dawdling but also being careful not to look like they were in any sort of hurry. They made their way to one of their favorite places to spend some "alone time". Then, once they could be sure that they were unobserved, they just… kept walking.

The pace that they set was brisk, but steady: they could not afford to drive themselves to exhaustion, but neither could they afford to linger, knowing that they only had until sunset before they would be missed. They had no food or water: they'd thought it would look suspicious if they took more than they would need for a day of leisure. "We can go for a day without eating or drinking," Suki had said. "It won't be very fun, but it's not going to kill us."

They _did_ have money: the two of them had pooled whatever meager savings they still had left, and agreed to keep it back and only spend it once they were sure that they were out of danger. Which didn't look like it would be for a while now, but still. It was something.

Sokka was the one who kept track of where they were, using the map that Piandao had sent him, while Suki focused on leading them on a path that would make it difficult for anyone to track them and covering any signs of their presence. By the time they made it to the harbor at sunset, he almost felt like he could breathe again.

They waited until full night before stealing a small sailboat and moving out under cover of darkness.

This time, Sokka was the one in charge, giving Suki instructions on how to manage the sails and correcting their course if necessary. By the time they reached the island that housed Shu Jing, at sunrise, neither of them had slept for the past twenty-four hours, but they were both still too wound up to even _think_ about closing their eyes.

They sunk the boat—they didn't want to take the risk of anyone putting the pieces together and tracing their escape route. As soon as the last bit of hull had disappeared beneath the waves, they turned their gazes inland.

By the time the sun had reached mid-morning, they'd been walking for several hours and the rush was starting to wear off. Their eyelids were heavy, their mouths dry, their stomachs rumbling, and sweat running down their faces from the oppressive Fire Nation heat. Their forward motion, by now, had become automatic: keep putting one foot in front of the other because it was too much effort to stop.

It was almost like coming out of a trance when they crested the final hill and got their first sight of the manor: elegant and sprawling, yet almost lonely in its isolation. The second he laid eyes on the fortifications and saw the white lotus that had been painted on the front gate, though, Sokka knew that they had come to the right place.

When the butler showed them in without batting an eyelash, saying only that the master had been expecting them, it was so surreal that Sokka was halfway convinced that he actually _was_ dreaming. The sight of his master and his sister sitting across from each other, having a friendly conversation and sharing a cup of tea, did nothing to dispel that illusion. Only when Katara's eyes widened and she launched herself from the table to throw herself into Sokka's arms, scolding him all the while for being _so stupid_ , did he finally manage to believe that it was real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I _was_ planning for this to go in another direction when I first started writing it, but it had its own thing that it wanted to do. Go figure.


End file.
